Chapter 406
Chapter 406
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 406
Chapter Title: Final Decision (6)
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Rumble. Thump, thump.
The buildings of Istas stacked up neatly, transforming into a massive, blocky structure. It looked like a giant planting its two thick legs into the earth.
Thain, who had opened a warehouse in the giant's right leg, said to Alpheas.
“Once we are inside, please reactivate Istas.”
Only those who would not go to Heaven have the right to check on Miro's space-time.
At least, that's what Alpheas thought, and he intended to do what he could.
“Let's begin.”
The playfulness had vanished from Gaold's face.
Finally, he would meet Miro.
It was almost a relief that she was lost in samadhi. Because the anger he had carefully bottled up for twenty years might waver.
Once everyone was inside the warehouse, Alpheas reactivated Istas.
Following the pattern Thain had set, the cube-shaped buildings began a complex sequence of connecting and detaching.
Thump. Thump-thump. Thump.
The heartbeat of Istas could be heard.
With every step, Thain's amber irises ticked back and forth.
His left iris tilted left and right within a 15-degree angle, while only his right iris rotated, showing different accelerations in each segment.
Thain maintained his walking speed but varied his stride. It was a method of controlling time by controlling space.
“This way.”
Thain turned at a right angle in the center of the warehouse and opened a door, and another warehouse rose up, connecting door to door to form a passageway.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the warehouse they had just been in dropped away, overtaken by another block as it receded into the distance.
This process repeated itself countless times.
‘Incredible. No one but a Savant could even dream of imitating this.’
The warehouse moved, Thain moved, and time moved.
It felt as if his existing concept of space was collapsing. Shirone was truly walking through four-dimensional spacetime.
When Thain's steps halted before their final destination, a wistful look filled Shirone's eyes.
Paranormal Research Society
A familiar sign was hanging there.
The crooked sign that always tilted on its own, as if defying balance, no matter how many times one set it straight.
Opening the door revealed the mess left behind by the agents who had ransacked the place.
The equations Iruki had written on the chalkboard were partially erased, and the picture books Nade had so desperately wanted to keep were left torn to shreds.
Thain walked over to where the sofa was.
“The Paranormal Research Society, twelve seconds from now. The upper level of Istas exists at those spacetime coordinates. From here, Armin, it's your turn.”
Armin walked past Thain and stepped forward.
As a scale magician who dealt with time and space, he understood what the upper level of Istas was without needing a lengthy explanation.
“Seven seconds. Six seconds. Five seconds.”
As Thain began the countdown, the sound of a fierce wind arose, as if they were caught in a storm.
It was a phenomenon caused by the spacetime coordinates of the upper level approaching them.
The objects in the research society's room blurred, melting into the dense, gale-force air, and a stone gate, similar in form to the Door of Guffin he had seen in Galliant, began to superimpose itself as an afterimage on the table in front of the sofa.
Ruuuuuumble!
“Four seconds. Three seconds.”
As time passed, the scenery grew fainter, while conversely, the colors of the stone gate became vividly clear.
The objects flickered and then turned transparent within the receding spacetime coordinates.
“Two seconds. One second.”
The moment all other scenery vanished and only the form of the stone gate reached 100 percent materialization.
“Now.”
Armin cast his spell.
Stop.
“My goodness…”
A strange light shone in Shina's eyes.
Etella and Shirone felt no differently.
The upper level of Istas, hidden in a specific space at a specific time, was now held fast by the Stop spell, revealing its form.
Twenty years ago, a genius girl appeared and astonished the world. And humanity imprisoned that girl at a coordinate in spacetime that no one could reach.
This was the truth behind the upper level of Istas, which had only existed as a wild rumor at Alpheas Magic Academy.
‘So this is what it was.’
Shirone finally understood Thain's words.
The origin point of the cube. The place countless agents had searched for but could never find.
Armin turned away from the stone gate and said.
“As long as time is stopped, the gate will remain. But it would be best to hurry. If the spell were to be broken, you would be trapped in Miro's dimension.”
It seemed unlikely to happen, but since their lives were on the line, there was no harm in being cautious.
Shirone had escaped from Miro's dimension once before, but that was a method only possible for an Un-locker.
Besides, with Miro currently lost in samadhi, they couldn't hope for her help.
Gaold didn't think about future problems.
His heart pounded, belying his title as a First-Class Archmage, and his face was more flushed than ever.
“Let's go, Thain.”
“Mm.”
The irises of Thain, who followed behind, were also rotating in opposite directions.
A phenomenon that occurred when coolness and excitement acted simultaneously.
The reason he was able to rise to the ranks of the strongest in Anti-Magic was thanks to this perfect separation of emotion and reason.
“Shirone, was it? You should do it.”
The gate to the upper level, like the Door of Guffin, was designed to be unsealed using Immortal Function.
There were two Un-lockers on the team anyway. However, since it was better for Armin to focus on the Stop spell, opening it was Shirone's job.
When Shirone activated Immortal Function, the characters on the stone gate lit up, then broke down into small cubes and spread out in the shape of a sphere.
As the matter melted away, a giant black hole was born.
“Um… who's going first?”
For some reason, it felt like they needed to decide the order.
It didn't matter right now, but it might be interpreted as a significant event in the future annals of history.
“It's only right for the one who broke the seal to enter first. Shirone, you are the first to enter.”
Armin said with a gentle smile, nudging Shirone forward.
Watching him, Shina's mind grew complicated. It felt as if she couldn't even remember who Armin was anymore.
“I'll go in, then.”
His vision went dark for a moment, then opened up to the view from the center of a colossal temple.
The sight of pillars, reaching a height of two kilometers, supporting the ceiling was undoubtedly Miro's dimension.
‘I never thought I'd come back here.’
One by one, people came through the black hole.
Just as when Shirone had first come here, everyone seemed speechless at the temple's immense scale, which defied human common sense.
“Huh? But…”
Shirone quickly looked back. As if having the same thought, everyone was looking around.
“What, what's going on?”
Miro was nowhere to be seen.
“Shirone, is this place…”
“No. It's Miro's dimension. It's exactly the same as when I came a year ago.”
Gaold cast the Fly spell.
With a *pop*, his body flew rapidly from one end of the temple to the other.
It was a 'Jet' type spell that used explosive air pressure for flight, not lift.
Gaold zipped around the vast temple.
The flight was similar to Shirone's wings, but the level of movement was on a different dimension.
When Gaold returned, his face began to contort menacingly. It looked as if a fiery hell was about to break loose.
“Those damn bastards…”
“Calm down. Nothing's happened yet. It's just that Miro isn't in Miro's dimension.”
Miro isn't in Miro's dimension.
It was a fact, since she wasn't actually here, but it was something that should never have been possible.
First, no one can enter Miro's dimension. Also, if she's in a state of samadhi, it's impossible for her to leave on her own.
No, if that were possible in the first place, there would have been no reason for Gaold to wait twenty years.
“A hijacking.”
Thain concluded.
“It seems Heaven has abducted Miro.”
Gaold asked.
“Is that even possible? Not even a single molecule has ever crossed over from Heaven.”
“No, it has happened.”
Armin bent down and picked up some debris from the floor.
It was a stone fragment that had crumbled from the ceiling when Miro's dimension sustained a shock.
He rubbed it between his fingers to check its material and said.
“I heard that a crack appeared in Miro's dimension a while ago. A Lawgiver crossed over into the Tormia Kingdom as well. I believe a magus from the Arcanis Sanctum handled it and reported back.”
“But that was just a spiritual entity at best. A crack is nowhere near enough to abduct an entire person.”
“The Ivory Tower shares that opinion. But that's just human thinking. If it's Heaven, and especially the archangels, they might have found a special way.”
Thain cupped his chin and mused.
“Why did they take Miro?”
At first glance, it was a curious question.
Because Heaven has been planning for the final war, and ever since Miro's dimension came into being, they have consistently shown their intent to infiltrate it.
Shirone asked.
“Isn't it obviously so they can invade this world?”
Etella said.
“No. That's probably impossible.”
Thain agreed.
“Just taking Miro has no effect. Even if they kill her, Miro's dimension won't be destroyed.”
Shirone asked back, bewildered.
“It won't be destroyed?”
“Miro's dimension is fundamentally based on the Gong-geop. It continuously creates new dimensions within a dimension. It uses that infinity to create a boundary in spacetime. And Miro, through samadhi, further accelerated the speed of the Gong-geop. The theory is that even if Miro dies, the inertia of her samadhi will continue to strengthen her dimension. Of course, you probably can't understand it.”
The deeper one goes into the mental world past the point of death, the weaker the control of consciousness becomes, and the more one is influenced by the strongest inertia of their life.
This is also why if you can't escape the Gong-geop even after the Virtual Zone is turned off, you become buried in your own mind forever.
“No. I think I get it.”
Thain didn't even snort.
“That's just a delusion. The delusion of a novice who thinks they've grasped the true meaning just because they understand the context.”
How many people in this world truly understand Miro's dimension?
Whatever the number, it certainly didn't include some brat from a magic academy.
Shina said.
“Shirone passed through the Gong-geop.”
A muscle in Thain's brow twitched. It was the greatest expression of surprise he could muster.
The only person from Alpheas Magic Academy to have passed through the Gong-geop was Miro. The memory of the uproar back then, when a world-class genius had appeared, was still vivid in his mind.
‘Hmm. I see. He's certainly worthy of Gaold's attention.’
Gaold summarized it simply.
“In any case, they can't kill Miro. The fact they took her anyway must mean they've found a way. We don't have much time. As soon as the team is ready, we're going to Heaven.”
Thain had no objection. He had spent twenty years scouring the Black Line for this very day.
‘But… is this really normal?’
The feeling was strange.
It was, quite literally, just a feeling.
Was today's outcome, this result, merely an unfortunate incident that could happen to anyone, born from a series of small coincidences?
If so, what was the identity of this unsettling sense of wrongness that wouldn't leave his mind?
The utterly irrational thought that if things were going to go this wrong, they should have gone wrong at some point during the past nineteen years.
‘Why now? No, why is this happening? Am I even sane for thinking this way? The world doesn't go as one wishes, anyway. Attributing transcendent meaning to coincidence is no different from superstition.’
He wanted to conclude it like that.
But in the end, Thain couldn't shake it.
It wasn't an illogical thought. Rather, it was a subtle disturbance arising from the realm of intuition, a place beyond logic.
‘Definitely…’
Something was wrong.